abbreviation

Alternative forms

• abbr., abbrv., abbrev.

Etymology

First attested 1400–50. From Middle English abbreviacioun, from Middle French abreviation, from Ecclesiastical Latin abbreviātiō, from Latin ad + breviō (“shorten”), from brevis (“short”). By surface analysis, abbreviate +‎ -ion.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˌbɹiː.viˈeɪ.ʃən/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /əˌbɹi.viˈeɪ.ʃn̩/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

abbreviation (countable and uncountable, plural abbreviations)

1. The result of shortening or reducing; abridgment. [First attested around 1350 to 1470.]^[1]
2. (linguistics) A shortened or contracted form of a word or phrase used to represent the whole, using omission of letters, and sometimes substitution of letters, or duplication of initial letters to signify plurality, including signs such as +, =, @. [Late 16^th century.]^[1] (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:)

   Hants is an abbreviation of Hampshire.

3. The process of abbreviating. [Mid 16^th century.]^[1]
4. (music) A notation used in music score to denote a direction, as pp or mf.
5. (music) One or more dashes through the stem of a note, dividing it respectively into quavers, semiquavers, demisemiquavers, or hemidemisemiquavers.
6. Any convenient short form used as a substitution for an understood or inferred whole.
   • 1946-1947, President Truman's committee on Civil Rights

     The phrase "civil rights" is an abbreviation for a whole complex of relationships.

7. (biology) Loss during evolution of the final stages of the ancestral ontogenetic pattern.
8. (mathematics) Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.

References

Further reading

• Abbreviation in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
• “abbreviation”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2000, →ISBN.
• “abbreviation”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "abbreviation" in WordNet 2.0, Princeton University, 2003.